First off, I don't mind how the P183 looks. But the thing that's stopping me from buying it for my new i7 system is I can't find anything factual about its noise levels compared to its well documented predecessor, just speculation that it's "probably" noisier because of the more open front. Benchmarkreviews have the only good in depth review I could find but sadly they didn't really talk about noise at all.

Should I just buy a P182 and be assured of noise levels (at the cost of airflow), or can anyone comment on P183?

I personally would go with the P182. I like the looks more, but this isn't the only reason why I'd go with it. As you said, the P183 may be noisier because it is a lot more open. The P182 does have less airflow, but it is fine to cool my overclocked Q9550 and Radeon HD4850 perfectly with only one fan, so I'd imagine it'd be alright.

Actually, if the looks *really* aren't a factor I'd say go with the P183. It comes with some very handy improvements to the P182 such as moving the lower chamber fan to the front of the lower hard drive bay. Also, all of the unnecessary grills in the back have been removed. Now there's only the vented PCI slot covers and the exhaust fan. All those stupid holes by the PSU have been removed so it properly sucks air from the front now. Just about the only downsides you've mentioned already: looks and maybe more noise. The former you don't care about, and the latter can be remedied by just plugging up a few holes with sound insulating material.

So 50/50 with comments so far, pretty much replicates what's going on in my head. What I'm dreading is I go for the 183 then shortly after this site comes out with its own in depth review revealing it's lost a lot of its acoustic strengths. But of course if it turns out the opposite I'll regret not buying one, because I like its changes that were mentioned above. Was hoping someone on here had one by now.

I'm planning on mildly ocing my i7 920 and there'll be a gtx275 in there, as well as probably a WD Caviar Black drive which I hear are noisy buggers. The more open front could be a problem mainly with that latter part. Can't think of an easy way to cover up those long side grills.

With door open it's not anymore just plain ugly but fugly.Antec must have hired designers from Thermalsh*t considering direction they're taking look of their cases.

Tir wrote:

WD Caviar Black drive which I hear are noisy buggers.

Nothing out of ordinary in (four) 6401AALS I have...
If anything I was surprised that I could hear full stroke seek noises outside damping mat lined Lian Li A71 only when listening from close distance.
(same with 5000AAKS and 4000KD)

_________________"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
-George Bernard Shaw

Still, I don't think the little weird shaped vents on the 183 ruin it that much, I mean it only looks crap in flash photos where the stuff behind them really stands out. It does look awful with the door open but then you're not going to have to leave the door open at all with the new vents.

In any case, if a case is cool and quiet I don't care what it looks like, it'll be hidden as much as possible to the side of my desk to cut down on noise anyway.

EsaT wrote:

Nothing out of ordinary in (four) 6401AALS I have...If anything I was surprised that I could hear full stroke seek noises outside damping mat lined Lian Li A71 only when listening from close distance.(same with 5000AAKS and 4000KD)

I wonder if the 1TB versions (WD1001FALS) are noiser than the 640GB? Silentpc's review of the former kind of scared me. But I guess I should post that in the storage section.

... speculation that it's "probably" noisier because of the more open front.

My speculation is that the noise will be slightly different in nature, rather than magnitude.
The reason is that the overall reduced air flow resistance will allow weaker, and thus less noisy, cooling to be used. That will reduce the amount of generated noise. Then a slightly larger portion of it will be heard.

One major deviation though:
- The optical drives should clearly be more audible from P183.

Another point: If the front door of P183 is considered the major problem, it could probably be replaced by a door for P180 or P182. (I asked Antec's EU support about this a while back. They couldn't say for sure, cause they hadn't seen the new case yet, but agreed with me that it did seem plausible.)

I myself is planning to buy either P182 or P183 within a few months. I'd generally prefer P183 for the improved air flow, not least thanks to the lowered PSU seating, but it will ultimately come to a price issue. Right now the P183 is offered at some $30 above P182.

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and pick up a P183. Nice to see you from the benchmarkreviews forum Olle.

My main concern was getting a noisy WD Black would be more of an issue with the P183, but looking back at P182 reviews there really isn't *that* much less path for noise to get out near the bottom. For some reason I thought the P182 didn't have those vents along the sides of the door but it does.

I now have the P183 sitting in its box next to me, and I'm very glad I chose it because I've decided to buy an Antec CP-850 PSU to go with it that doesn't fit in the 182 (without even more modding anyway). I also bought a Samsung F1 1TB instead of the WD Black so I don't have to worry about noise from that. This case/psu combo should last me many many years and upgrades, I'll report on its noise once I get all the other parts early next week.

I've recently purchased this case, its currently being shipped. I only realized that it has 2 fans after i bought it! I was wondering if it I would need a fan for the front mid chamber?

I was planning on running an i7 920 (mild o/c to ~3.2), HD 4870, one hdd in the lower chamber along with a corsair tx850 psu.

Would I do fine without any additional fans? If not should I get 1 for the lower chamber only, or 1 for the mid chamber only? Or do both? I don't want it to be too loud, but I do want to keep everything cool! Isn't that everyone's goal?

Dough, you most probably won't need any more fans, and might even consider removing one of the already installed (blocking the place where it is mounted).
The PSU fan will take care of all required cooling in the lower chamber, and provided you use the stock cooler on the graphics card, that will work in concert with the case fan(s) to draw air from the front.
Only if you have a GPU cooler that spread hot air all over the place could it be necessary to have an intake fan.

I currently own a P182, I love it, though I have a love/hate relationship with the door, I love it that it hides the HDD light, I hate it when I have to use my DVD drives for any reason, but thats just an annoyance, what I really hate is I have a GTX280 and an nvidia 790i mobo, I have to have my raptor upside down in the bottom slot for the top HDD cage, I just got a second raptor and I cant use it due to the video card bing in the way, if it was an inch shorter or if the bay was an inch farther forward then it would be fine.

I currently own a P182, I love it, though I have a love/hate relationship with the door, I love it that it hides the HDD light, I hate it when I have to use my DVD drives for any reason, but thats just an annoyance, what I really hate is I have a GTX280 and an nvidia 790i mobo, I have to have my raptor upside down in the bottom slot for the top HDD cage, I just got a second raptor and I cant use it due to the video card bing in the way, if it was an inch shorter or if the bay was an inch farther forward then it would be fine.

I did, the drives got to hot to touch, also for some reason I cant monitor SMART features for temps so I don't want to mess with doing the drives down there again till I get my 120x20mm fan I just ordered.

I did, the drives got to hot to touch, also for some reason I cant monitor SMART features for temps so I don't want to mess with doing the drives down there again till I get my 120x20mm fan I just ordered.

Mine stays within 28~35 depending on season, and that's with fan filters. Else I would have did away with the S-Flex but at 500rpm it's not perceivable.

I've had my P183 i7 system running for almost a week now and I'm not happy with its noise levels. At first I thought it was only slightly louder than my old Sonata 1 system, but I noticed that I can go into the next room and still hear it quite easily due to the tone. Then a weird little "ticky" sound cropped up, I discovered loosening the screws a bit on the top fan vent made it stop. And just then I discovered a fair amount of the annoying tone was due to vibrations, that if I place some weight on the top of the case, goes away. I have a 360 pad sitting on top of it for now. The tone of the noise still changes frequently which makes it irritating.

On the positive side, temps are very low, so I put the low noise adapters on my Noctua U12P fans a couple days ago, and they're still low enough that I'll put the "ultra" low noise adapters on them soon to see if it helps at all. Case fans have stayed on low. Also I tried covering the front holes but noticed no change in noise levels at all.

P183
Antec CP-850
Noctua C12P 1366
Samsung F1 (nice and quiet, but also got 3 older HDs from my Sonata 1 in there right now which aren't helping)

Thats not good. Do you think its the harddrives or just the sum of it all? I was thinking about getting a P183 and putting in some foam, didnt think I needed to add any mass-dampening tho. Was hoping I wouldn't have to add that much weight.

I've had my P183 i7 system running for almost a week now and I'm not happy with its noise levels. At first I thought it was only slightly louder than my old Sonata 1 system, but I noticed that I can go into the next room and still hear it quite easily due to the tone. Then a weird little "ticky" sound cropped up, I discovered loosening the screws a bit on the top fan vent made it stop. And just then I discovered a fair amount of the annoying tone was due to vibrations, that if I place some weight on the top of the case, goes away. I have a 360 pad sitting on top of it for now. The tone of the noise still changes frequently which makes it irritating.

I had the same problem with my P182. Antec Tricool fans are crap. The top one on my P182 made the case hum. Replace it with a proper fan and the problem will go away.

Actually, replace them all. Tricools are loud and don't move much air.

well I got the 120mm x 20mm fan, but what fans would you all suggest for the other 3 spots to replace the crappy tri-cool fans? I don't mind too much noise but I want more air movement... I live in So Cali and we are getting in to the summer months.

Soft-mount them all with rubber fan mounts (Nexus include these with their fans, you will have to buy separately for Scythe fans). Use some Zalman Fanmates, a proper fan controller or some hard-wired voltage outputs (eg Zalman make some for 5V) to set the speeds for these fans - you can turn them up in summer or when you are gaming.

(I've used a combination of these fans in my P182 gaming rig in my sig).

There is one difference between the P182 and P183 that might be to the P183's advantage: it's shorter. According to Antec's site, the P183 is 20.25" tall, whereas the P182 is 21.3". It doesn't sound like much (1.05"), but the space where I put my computer is 21.0" high. So, the P182 is just a smidge too big, while the P183 would just squeak in. Of course, if I were to use the top fan, that amount of clearance is still probably not enough to avoid turbulence/backwash/cavitation or some other technical term.

... According to Antec's site, the P183 is 20.25" tall, whereas the P182 is 21.3".

... but the metric values are exactly the same! The difference is that P182 is described using one decimal inch values and whole cms, whereas P183 is described with two decimal inch values and mms.
Before Antec had the makeover of their site a few months back it was even more apparent.

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